SailorsOne sailors tale published in 1832 speaks of Fiddler's Green as being "nine miles beyond the dweling of his Satanic majesty".[1] In maritime folklore it is a kind of afterlife for sailors who have served at least 50 years at sea.,[2][3] where there is rum,tobacco and marijuana.[4]
[edit] Frederick MarryatFiddler's Green appears in his novel The Dog Fiend; Or, Snarleyyow, published in 1856,[5] as lyrics to a sailors' song:
At Fiddlers Green, where seamen true
When here theyve done their duty
The bowl of grog shall still renew
And pledge to love and beauty.
[edit] Adoption among US militaryThe story of Fiddler's Green was published in 1923, in Cavalry Journal.[6] According to this article, it was inspired by a story told by Captain "Sammy" Pearson at a campfire in the Medicine Bow Mountains of Wyoming. It is still used by modern cavalry units to memorialize the deceased. The name has had other military uses. Today, in the heart of the Helmand River Valley, in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, the U.S. Marine Corps operates a firebase (FB) named Fiddler's Green. Fiddlers Green was an artillery Fire Support Base in Military Region III in Vietnam in 1972 occupied principally by elements of 2nd Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry, and also was the name of the U.S. Navy's enlisted men's club in Sasebo, Japan from 1952 to 1976. It was the name of the enlisted men's club at Bainbridge Naval Training Center. The informal bar at the Fort Sill Officers' Open Mess used to be known as Fiddler's Green and it is the name of the stable and pasture used by Parsons Mounted Cavalry, a cadet group at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, and that of the bar at the Leaders Club in Fort Knox, Kentucky.